1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a converter for connecting a modulation/demodulation equipment having a first interface type and a modulation/demodulation equipment having a second interface type to each other.
2. Description of the Background Art
A modulation/demodulation equipment such as a MODEM is connected to a terminal equipment such as a personal computer or the like, via a specific interface. The term "interface" used herein indicates physical and logical rules defined for the communications between two or more devices. More specifically, the term "interface" is defined as the rules related to a communication protocol, timings for inputting/outputting signals, the shape and pin arrangement of the connectors, and the like. An interface is selectively used depending on the conditions under which the modulation/demodulation equipment and the terminal equipment are used. For example, in the case where the modulation/demodulation equipment is of a card type, an interface dedicated to a card-type equipment is adopted in order to realize portability of the modulation/demodulation equipment. Such a card-type modulation/demodulation equipment has no physical space for a large-capacity power supply. Therefore, to the card-type modulation/demodulation equipment, power is supplied from the terminal equipment via the interface dedicated to a card-type equipment.
As described above, the card-type modulation/demodulation equipment has an interface dedicated to a card-type equipment. Therefore, it is impossible to directly connect the card-type modulation/demodulation equipment to a terminal equipment having a conventional versatile interface. The reason is that signals cannot be transmitted and received between the devices having different interfaces, because the different interfaces define different rules related to the types of signals, the timings for inputting/outputting signals, and the like. Moreover, the card-type modulation/demodulation equipment has no physical space for providing a connector having the versatile interface and a power supply.
Therefore, it is impossible to directly substitute the card-type modulation/demodulation equipment for the conventional modulation/demodulation equipment having the versatile interface and having a power supply. As a result, according to the prior art, the card-type modulation/demodulation equipment cannot be connected to terminal equipment having the versatile interface.